Monsieur Pamplemousse on Probation (15 page)

Shinko stood back while master and hound were reunited. Words were unnecessary. In any case their moment of joy was short-lived. In a very short space of time the room became crowded with interested parties; passers-by, near neighbours, members of staff, someone who announced himself as ‘the Security Officer’… Pommes Frites made himself scarce.

As soon as Monsieur Pamplemousse had got rid of everyone he telephoned the Director.

‘I have bad news for you,
Monsieur
. The Twingo has been destroyed. Blown up.’

To Monsieur Leclercq’s credit his immediate thought was not the loss of the car and the cost to himself, but for the well-being of others.

‘You have escaped injury, Aristide?’

‘Oui, Monsieur.’

‘And Pommes Frites …?’

‘He looks a little shaken, but otherwise he is unharmed. He was out burying something when it happened.’

‘Not another near tragedy involving a
boudin
, I trust?’

‘I fear so,
Monsieur
. The hotel has a delicatessen in the village and I bought him a large one as a treat when we were out shopping yesterday. It was meant for his breakfast. He must have been hiding it for safe-keeping …’ Monsieur Pamplemousse broke off in mid-sentence. The plate he had taken out of the refrigerator was in two pieces on the floor. The
boudin
lay untouched where it had landed. He looked around, but Pommes Frites had disappeared again. He was heading towards the gates and he seemed to be in a hurry.

‘It’s enough to put him off them for ever more,’ said the Director. ‘Please let me know if he needs counselling.’

‘On the contrary,
Monsieur
,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘I think if he finds whoever was responsible for the outrage that person will need first priority.’

‘You must return to Paris at once, Aristide …’

‘But,
Monsieur
…’

‘That is an order, Pamplemousse. Start packing immediately. I will arrange for a car to pick you up and take you to the nearest
gare
.’

Monsieur Pamplemousse gave a shrug as he replaced the receiver. It wouldn’t have happened in the old days. On the other hand, there was nothing more he could do in Pouligny. The chief was right; one way and another the whole thing had become a
débâcle
. The sooner he was out of it the better. Apart from that, it was high time he and Monsieur Leclercq had a heart-to-heart talk.

He wondered if he should search out Claude before he left, then decided against it. Some things were better left to fate.

Seeing a movement outside he noticed Inspector Lafarge rooting about in the snow and he went out to greet him.

‘Look what I’ve found!’ Lafarge held up the blackened remains of a Wellington boot. The expression on his face said it all. Triumph was writ large.

‘Whoever was responsible must have returned to the scene of the crime. Probably looking for the murder weapon or some vital clue they have lost. It will be revealed when the weather clears.’ He glanced around and nodded towards some tracks in the snow. ‘It looks as though they panicked and started running around in circles.’

‘There was nothing inside the Wellington boot?’ asked Monsieur Pamplemousse innocently.

‘Does it look like it?’

‘Whoever had it on might not have been wearing
any socks,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘There could be some toe prints. Not as good as fingers, but useful.’

Lafarge turned away. He appeared to be mouthing something.

Monsieur Pamplemousse held out his hand. ‘
Bonne chance
. I have a train to catch.’

‘You ought to know better than that. First, we shall need a statement.’

Monsieur Pamplemousse sighed. For once Inspector Lafarge was right.

‘If you can make it sooner rather than later.’

With a certain amount of ill grace Lafarge followed him inside, and to do him justice didn’t linger over the small print. Monsieur Pamplemousse gave him his home telephone number.

Packing took longer than he’d bargained for. It was worse than having a shattered windscreen. No doubt he would come across fragments of glass in his clothing for weeks to come; reminders of his time in Pouligny. He left the room with a nagging feeling of having left something behind. Or, to be more precise, something he would have taken had it still been there. If that were the case, so be it. It would turn up sooner rather than later.

The room maid was
désolée
to see him leave. And the mess! ‘
Oh là là!
’ The girl at the check-out was
désolée
. Everyone was
désolé
. There would, of
course, be no charge for his stay; Madame Dulac had sent word.

By the time various members of staff had expressed their condolences and their hopes that he would pay them a return visit, Shinko appeared to tell him the car to take him to Roanne had arrived. She led the way outside, signalling a waiter to follow on behind with the baggage.

Pommes Frites was waiting. As ever, it was hard to tell what he was thinking. He looked slightly pained. A mixture of pain and relief?

‘I saw him in the distance,’ said Shinko. ‘He was taking the long way round.’

‘I’m sorry about the boots.’

‘
Pas de problème
. There are plenty more where they came from. Better to lose a pair of Wellington boots than a guest. All the boots in the world don’t replace guests.’

‘How
is
business?’

She made a face accompanied by a see-saw motion of her right hand. ‘
Comme ci comme ça.
News travels fast these days. Already there have been cancellations. Five from America. Three from Japan.’

‘What will you do?’

‘Move on, perhaps. It is still the skiing season. I may fill in as a chalet girl for a while. We’ll see.’

It rendered his automatic response of
l’année
prochaine
redundant. He doubted if he would ever be back anyway. Not unless he were needed as a witness.

‘And you?’ Shinko looked at him enquiringly.

‘It is back to Paris, I am afraid.’

‘Brilliant! In the meantime I should hurry. There is a problem down near the gates.’ She opened the rear door of a black Citroën.

Monsieur Pamplemousse followed Pommes Frites inside.

‘Thank you for all you have done.’

‘
Mon plaisir. Bon voyage
as they say. Take care.’

‘You too.’

He suddenly felt unwarrantably sad as the door closed behind him. People entered your life and then disappeared again. Lights came on, shone brightly for a while, then went out.

Shinko was right. As they neared the entrance gates they encountered a small posse of police armed with shovels and metal detectors. They were looking at something in the long grass. One of the
gendarmes
was unreeling a length of tape, tying it to convenient trees and shrubs, cordoning off the area.

Another
gendarme
signalled his driver to stop. It looked as though they would be the last ones out for a while. The Americans were going to be late for their lunch.

Pommes Frites peered out of the side window. He seemed surprised by what he saw.

Inspector Lafarge, who appeared to be directing operations, detached himself from the main group and came towards them.

Monsieur Pamplemousse reached for his notebook, wrote a name down on one of the pages, then tore it off and folded it in two as he climbed out of the car.

He held the note up as Lafarge drew near. ‘A little suggestion for later. When you are less busy.’

‘We have discovered a strange vibration,’ said Lafarge briefly.

‘A vibration?’

Lafarge nodded. ‘It is lying beneath some
caca de chien.
We are about to conduct a controlled explosion.’

‘You are blowing up some dog shit?’

Inspector Lafarge nodded uneasily. ‘We cannot afford to take chances.’ He kept trying to see over Monsieur Pamplemousse’s shoulder. ‘What is that?’

Monsieur Pamplemousse turned and caught Pommes Frites’ eye. He appeared to be hanging on their every word. ‘It is a dog.’

‘A dog! He has been staying here or is he just passing through?’ Lafarge suddenly seemed depressed, as though something had connected in the back of his mind; light at the end of a very long tunnel.

Monsieur Pamplemousse’s mind was similarly hard at work. He remembered now what it was that had been missing from his room. In the event it had turned up sooner rather than later. It seemed a good moment to say farewell.

‘We will be on our way. But first, a word of warning. Tell whoever has his finger on the button to stand well clear of the fan.’

It was good to be back; away from the snow and back amongst the familiar sounds and smells of Paris.

Doucette had been mildly reproving about the lack of communication, until she heard about the fate of the Twingo, then she went quiet.

Heading for the office, Monsieur Pamplemousse followed the route of the 80
autobus
for most of the way; through the Place Clichy, where the stop/start early morning traffic allowed Pommes Frites time to exchange greetings with a nodding acquaintance who for some years had kept guard outside a men’s outfitters, past the Gare St Lazare and along the rue La Boétie, parting company at the Rond Point so that he could cross the Seine by the Pont des Invalides rather than the Pont de l’Alma.

The mackerel clouds were unusually high for the
time of year, and the 2CV behaved impeccably all the way, as though sensing a touch of early spring in the air.

News of their narrow escape must have filtered through to Headquarters because even the normally taciturn Rambaud managed to summon up a smile as they passed the window of his office by the staff entrance.

The Director greeted them as though they were long-lost explorers, fussing about like an old hen.

‘Aristide, my dear fellow, come in, come in. And Pommes Frites too. What will it be? An
apéritif
of some kind?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Or is it too early? Don’t ask me for a Suze. I daresay that’s what you’ve been drinking while you were in the Auvergne. It’s too medicinal for my taste. A glass of champagne, perhaps? I have some of your favourite Gosset. The
quatre-vingt-dix
– an excellent vintage. Please make yourself comfortable.’

While he was talking, Monsieur Leclercq crossed to his drinks cupboard and opened the door to reveal an array of bottles and glasses at the ready. The welcome could hardly have been warmer had they just returned from a particularly hazardous expedition to the darker regions of the upper Amazon.

Drinks poured, all three comfortably settled – Monsieur Pamplemousse in the visitor’s chair,
Pommes Frites at his feet next to a bowl of water, and the Director for once not behind his desk, but in an armchair brought in specially for the occasion – there was a momentary lull in the proceedings.

Monsieur Leclercq was the first to break the silence. ‘Tell me,’ he began. ‘How are things in Pouligny?’

‘It is my opinion,
Monsieur
, that despite everything, the Hôtel Dulac will survive. There is too much at stake. Besides, it is too good, too professional to fail. Much knowledge has already been handed down. If it comes to pass that the summit meeting is held there, it will be an enormous fillip and perhaps spur them on to even greater efforts.’

Was it too fanciful to wonder if one day Claude might assume the mantle of her illustrious relative? Time alone would tell.

‘No more recycled lettuce leaves?’

‘If all I believe is correct,
Monsieur
, that will be a thing of the past, along with all the other minor problems they have been suffering.’

‘And the Twingo?’

‘I am afraid it is damaged beyond repair. The whole of the back was blown clean away.’

The Director gave a shudder. ‘Just think, Aristide, you might have been inside it.’

‘That was probably the intention. Had the device been connected to the ignition instead of to the hotel
paging system, as I suspect it was, I certainly would have been.’

‘I should never have forgiven myself.’

‘It could have been worse …’

‘Pommes Frites?’

Monsieur Pamplemousse nodded. ‘He would almost certainly have been in the back seat. He prefers it on a long journey. Then I would never have forgiven myself.’

‘But how, Aristide? And why? Most of all, why? And, of course, by whom?’

‘The “how” is easy,
Monsieur
. Fertiliser, saturated in diesel fuel and packed into a confined space like a car boot, is one of the simplest forms of explosive available. It is more economical than dynamite, and needs only a simple detonator to set it off. A blasting cap would have been ideal. It was probably stolen from the local quarry. A simple modification of a pager would have turned it into a switch. Pushed into the explosive mixture along with a battery, it only needed someone to press the appropriate button at the right moment to complete the circuit.

‘The plan very nearly came off. Whoever it was probably intended to lie in wait for me to get in the car. He had armed himself with a person to person controller, but he reckoned without the fact that not only is the main panel situated in reception, it
is also duplicated in the restaurant area and both were capable of overriding it. The preparation of
déjeuner
is usually left to the junior staff and in the confusion someone must have pressed the wrong button by mistake in order to summon a waiter and
poof
!’

‘I must go through the insurance agreement with a fine-toothed comb,’ broke in the Director. ‘I’m sure there will be a clause in it somewhere or other about loading the boot with fertiliser. On the other hand, farmers must do it all the time. In any case, they are bound to ask the obvious question.’

‘Why did it happen?’ continued Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Someone clearly felt threatened by my presence. As for who that person was … I think I would rather not answer that question for the time being. At least not until I have more proof.

‘But first of all,
Monsieur
, and changing the subject, let me say straight away that your secret is safe with me.’

The Director looked suitably touched. ‘I knew I could rely on you, Aristide.’

‘It must have been a great burden to you all these years,’ ventured Monsieur Pamplemousse.

‘It has, Pamplemousse, it has.’ The Director gazed into his glass, saw that already it was almost empty and reached for the ice bucket on a small table beside him.

While he was occupied, Monsieur Pamplemousse sought for words to express what he wished to say.

‘It is not my business,
Monsieur
, but I take it Madame Leclercq knows nothing of the affair. I ask, simply because I would not wish inadvertently to say the wrong thing should the subject ever come up.’

Monsieur Leclercq blanched at the thought.

‘I have always tried to keep it from Chantal,’ he said. ‘I promised the Founder on my honour it would remain a secret, so, apart from your good self, and fate intervened to bring about your involvement, that is the way I trust it will remain.’

Monsieur Pamplemousse stared at him. ‘Monsieur Duval knew?’

The Director nodded. ‘Not straight away, of course. That was the whole tragedy. Had he known from the very beginning things would have been different. I am not saying they would necessarily have been better, who can tell? In many ways Monsieur Hippolyte Duval was not a man of the world. He led a sheltered life, particularly during his later years. He was wholly tied up in the pursuit of excellence; the excellence of what he came to think of as his calling. Towards the end there was an almost Messianic aura about him. Then again, he had always been one of nature’s bachelors. It is hard to picture how he would have coped with family life.’

His mind in a whirl, Monsieur Pamplemousse listened to the Director’s monologue with only half an ear. ‘It is perhaps fortunate for him that the occasion never arose,’ he said at last.

‘Our Founder was an honourable man, Aristide,’ said the Director simply. ‘He was never one to shirk his obligations. In his mind Claude came to represent the child he never had; someone to whom he could have passed on the result of his life’s endeavours had things been different.’

Monsieur Pamplemousse gazed up at the picture of Monsieur Hippolyte Duval, viewing it with new respect.

‘To have taken on his own love child,
Monsieur
, would have been an act of great self-sacrifice, but to have taken on someone else’s … it is hard to find words. He must have thought the world of you.’

It was the Director’s turn to look puzzled. ‘I’m afraid I do not follow your line of thought, Pamplemousse. What are you trying to say?’

Feeling himself entering deep waters, Monsieur Pamplemousse took a deep breath and reached for his notebook. It was time for plain speaking. What was it the writer Georges Simenon had once said? ‘A drowning man doesn’t worry about the purity of his strokes.’

Flipping through his notebook, he found the page he was looking for; the one containing notes he had
made during his visit to the cemetery in Pouligny.

‘Forgive me,
Monsieur
, but we
are
talking about the same Claude?’

Monsieur Leclercq stared at him. ‘I’m afraid I still do not follow you, Aristide.’

‘I mean the one who was born to Madame Danièle Dulac in 1961.’

It was the Director’s turn to look confused. ‘No, Pamplemousse, we are not. It goes back much further than that. We are talking about the Claude who was born to a Mademoiselle Florentine Dulac in 1939.’

‘But …’ Monsieur Pamplemousse did a rapid mental calculation, ‘but, unless my information is at fault,
Monsieur
himself was not even born at that time.’

‘Your information is entirely accurate, Aristide, I was not even minus one.’

‘Then you are not the father of the child in question?’

During the long silence that followed Monsieur Pamplemousse’s last remark, a feeling of
déjà vu
came over Pommes Frites. Sensing it was time for a nap, he closed his eyes.

‘I don’t know what to say, Aristide.’ The Director spoke at long last.

‘You did tell me about your first visit to the Auvergne on behalf of
Le Guide
,’ said Monsieur
Pamplemousse defensively. ‘I naturally assumed it was something that happened then. A moment of indiscretion for which you have been paying the price all these years.

‘Then again, there was all the secrecy with the car. The way it had to be collected and delivered. I began putting two and two together …’

‘Not unnaturally making
cinq
.’ The Director hesitated, his eyes suspiciously moist. Then, avoiding Monsieur Pamplemousse’s gaze, he took the opportunity to recharge their glasses. ‘And without knowing the truth of the matter you unhesitatingly risked your life for me?’

Monsieur Pamplemousse paused before answering. The plain fact was that it had been
because
of the Director rather than for him, but he doubted if he would have behaved any differently had he known the truth. Despite all his faults there was something about Monsieur Leclercq that brought out the best in people.

He nodded. ‘I can only repeat,
Monsieur
. Your secret is safe with me. What has happened is past history, a matter of record that cannot be changed.’

‘There I must disagree.’ The Director crossed to the window and gazed out over the Esplanade des Invalides with unseeing eyes. Clearly, his mind was far away. ‘History is only what we choose to
remember. Worse still, more often than not it is the interpretation others choose to make of events about which, not being present at the time, they know little or nothing about. You only have to compare the history books of France and England to have proof of that.
Les Anglaises
still believe they won the battle of Waterloo.

‘Make yourself comfortable. I will tell you a story. One which I trust will give you no cause to alter your resolve to keep the matter a secret.’

Clearly bracing himself for the task in hand, Monsieur Leclercq made sure the door to his office was firmly closed, took a long draught of champagne before seating himself, then pushed the glass to one side out of reach of temptation while he marshalled his thoughts.

‘Aristide,’ he began, ‘you are a good
homme
. It is no wonder I put so much trust in you. Do you seriously think for one moment that I am the father of Claude?’

‘The present Claude,
Monsieur
?’

‘Of any Claude, Pamplemousse. Past, present or future. It is not a name which would sit in harmony alongside that of Leclercq.

‘I see I must tell you the story from the beginning, as told to me by our Founder on his deathbed. When you hear it you will appreciate it could not have been easy for him. You will also understand why,
once repeated, the sorry tale must not go beyond the four walls of this office.’

‘Of course,
Monsieur
. I give you my word on that.’

‘It began,’ said Monsieur Leclercq, ‘in 1938 when, at the age of fifty-nine, Monsieur Duval set out to explore the length and breadth of France; a mammoth task even by today’s standards with all the resources we have at our disposal.
Le
Guide
itself was then approaching its fortieth anniversary, and it had expanded beyond all his wildest dreams and expectations. The coming of the automobile had changed everything. During the thirties people’s horizons had broadened and from being a slim volume devoted to places within cycling distance of Paris, it now embraced the whole of France. Michelin was hard on its heels; others were beginning to make their presence felt.

‘On the third week of his travels Monsieur Duval reached the Auvergne and late one night arrived in Pouligny; which then, as now, boasted but two hotels; the Moderne and the Hôtel du Commerce. Both establishments were ostensibly owned by members of the same family, although once again, as is still the case today, that was in name only, for the people concerned were as different from each other as chalk and cheese. The one half of the family, talented and ambitious, the other half lazy and unreliable.

‘It was this time of the year; cold and snowing hard. Tired out after his long journey and stricken with influenza, Monsieur Duval settled on the first hotel he came to, which happened to be the Commerce. Influenza was a much more serious matter before the war and fortunately he went straight to bed, otherwise we might not be where we are today.

‘For almost a week it was touch and go as to whether or not he would survive. The local doctor had almost given up on him, but he was nursed back to health by the owner’s wife, Madame Florentine, who, much to our Founder’s consternation, later tried to take advantage of his weakened state and climb into bed with him. Fortunately, he was able to draw on his reserves as he put it and he repulsed her advances, although clearly it disturbed him rather more than he cared to admit at the time, perhaps sowing the seeds for what was to follow.